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Welcome to the Sustainable Finance Guernsey podcast page.
Guernsey Finance is a joint government and industry initiative tasked with promoting and connecting Guernsey as a leading international finance centre.
Named as one of the Green Finance Guide's top 10 must-listen sustainable finance podcasts, our broadcasts feature news, insights and discussion about green and sustainable finance, and the contribution which Guernsey, as a global leader in green finance, is making in this space.
Rosie (00:00)
Hello and welcome to the latest sustainable finance, Guernsey podcast, which is rated one of the top 10 most useful sustainable finance podcast by green finance guide. Guernsey is one of the jurisdictions leading the way in green and sustainable finance. And as part of this podcast series, we speak to and learn from some of the leading global figures in the field. My name's Rosie Allsopp. I am communications director at Guernsey finance, the promotional agency for Guernsey's financial services industry.
And I am delighted to be speaking again with Racquel Moses, who is UNFCC Global Ambassador and Chief Executive of the Caribbean Climate Smart Accelerator. If you are a regular follower of Guernsey Finance, you'll recall that Racquel and I met in December at COP28, where we had a fascinating fireside chat about her work on the Islands of Hope stage.
As the chief executive of the Caribbean Climate Smart Accelerator, Racquel leads the accelerator as it delivers its strategy, bringing with her nearly two decades of business management experience in the Caribbean region. She works with key stakeholders in governments and public and private sectors to co -develop and agree on accelerator strategies to drive investment projects across the Caribbean at scale. Today,
as well as topical trends in sustainable finance. We'll also be discussing some of the key takeaways from COP28 and the aims and projects of the Caribbean's Climate Smart Accelerator. Welcome Rakow, it is wonderful to speak with you again. How are you?
Racquel Moses (01:33)
Well, thank you so much. Great to see you again, Rosie.
Rosie (01:37)
should we kick
us a bit about yourself and your history and the current work that you're doing with the Caribbean Climate Smart Accelerator.
Racquel Moses (01:45)
Sure. So my name is Racquel Moses. I'm from the Caribbean. I was born and raised in Trinidad and Tobago. My career was largely a tech career. I worked for on JP Morgan
.com. I worked for Fujitsu for many years. I worked with cable and wireless for many years. And then I led the investment promotion agency of Trinidad and Tobago for a little while. And then I was head of Microsoft for Trinidad and Tobago.
So I've had a really exciting and tech -based career and where tech intersected with climate was between the investment promotion agency and Microsoft. At Microsoft, we deployed some internet of things devices into our Gulf to detect oil spills because we're an oil and gas nation. And that really opened up my eyes to the challenges that we faced in the environment.
And at the investment promotion agency, we were promoting green investments. And so, you know, again, being so close to what was happening and what we needed to do and the kinds of investments that we needed to promote
a big difference in how involved I wanted to
So from there, working at the Accelerator, we actually worked very closely with the investment promotion agency and in promoting the establishment of a solar
assembly facility in Trinidad and Tobago, something the government's been working on for a long time. But we're also working on bringing new sources of finance to the table for things like conservation. You know, with mitigation, there's so much funding available, albeit not flowing as quickly as we'd like. But with adaptation, it really requires a different level of creativity in finding those funding flows to make adaptation make sense in the short term.
And over the long term, it always makes financial sense. But in the short term, we really need to help countries in figuring out how to get that done. So we've launched our Climate Smart Map, which I hope we'll talk a little bit more about today, and helping investors sort of close the loop between where the region is and what things they can do to support us.
Rosie (03:56)
Thank you so much. Now, when we spoke at COP28, you noted that one of your objectives in attending was the loss and damage fund commitments three months on. What are your thoughts on the commitments made and the outcomes in this area? Do you think there were any other achievements at COP that you'd like to highlight?
Racquel Moses (04:15)
Certainly. So I think by the end of COP, I was absolutely blown away by the level of commitment to the loss and damage fund. As much as that was what we wanted and had hoped for, it exceeded our every expectation in terms of there were announcements on day one about commitments to the fund. And typically you'll walk away from a COP to the bitter end and not hear anything about the progress that's been made. So it's really nice.
that we started strong out the gate with the commitment to the Loss and Damage Fund. And I'm really hoping, I think with a lot of these things, the commitment is sort of the tip of the iceberg. It's all of the work that happens under the water to get that commitment flowing to fruition. And so I know that the work is taking place now to operationalize that fund. And I'd like to see some more activity being released so that we understand the progress that's being made.
So
certainly one of the outcomes. I think the second outcome that absolutely shook me to my core, which I was really, really pleased about, was the latest Too Late campaign, where they were really advocating with the COP 28 president to talk about the impact of fossil fuels and ramping up tripling renewable energy capacity, et cetera.
And that letter by that coalition, you know, within hours, it was like a positive wildfire. Everyone was talking about it. The cop president, yeah, the cop president himself was referencing it. It was magnificent. And so I'm so proud of the work that Global Optimism did to bring all of that together. And they typically don't want credit for it, right? Because you don't hear who was behind it, but they did so much amazing work.
Rosie (05:49)
It was so, yeah.
Racquel Moses (06:08)
with the climate champions to bring this to fruition. Yeah, I was so very proud to be a part of it.
Rosie (06:09)
They really did.
to capture the media attention in the way that they did with that was also really spectacular. So yeah, two really good outcomes there. Now we talked very briefly a second ago about the climate smart map at COP28. Now this interactive map, it shows various projects and data sets for member nations and it's a really fantastic resource. Could you tell our listeners a little bit more about the aims of
Racquel Moses (06:22)
Yeah.
Yes.
Sure. So the Climate Smart Map, which you can find at map .CaribbeanAccelerator .org. So if you want it to sort of toy with it while you listen, that's something that you can do. But it lists all of, you see the challenge that we face as islands and as small island developing states is that we're small. So when people think about transformational change, they're like, oh no, not the Caribbean. They're too small. They're not, we can't scale transformation in that tiny place. But when you start thinking about us as,
regionally rather than as individual islands, the scale starts to make sense. And when you pair that with our vulnerability, which the map shows, then you can start to see how you are really making an impact on lives and helping to transform lives on the forefront of climate change. So the map will highlight a number of different things for either the general public or investors looking to amass projects or philanthropists looking at
the greatest areas of need. And you can see our climate vulnerability, where we have climate action plans, where we have national adaptation plans, what our commitments are to the Paris Agreement, what are some of the projects that are taking place, how those projects are progressing, where they're successful. So it helps to just kind of take a step back and have a regional view of all that's happening within our space in the region and find ways to help. Because I think...
you know, all of the people that I've met, everybody wants to help, but it's really difficult figuring out how do I support, how do I help? And this provides a really clear way of suggesting here are some areas that you can get involved.
Rosie (08:21)
Thank you. Now, last year on this podcast, I spoke with Abhishek Dhawan, who is a sustainable finance and partnership specialist at the United Nations Capital Development Fund on the subject of blended finance and the opportunities it presents. How important do you see this as in the development of the Caribbean Climate Smart Accelerator?
Racquel Moses (08:43)
It is one of our core pillars using blended finance to unlock financial flows. And the reason that we think that that's so important is that traditional finance, and we're seeing a lot of impact investment, but they're impacting at traditional rates with all of the very high bars that you have to meet for traditional finance. And for us, that doesn't allow us to create the impact, right? Because it's such a high bar.
But blending that with philanthropy can help us to either reduce the cost of capital or to do the preparation required to access commercial funding. So we see blended finance as sort of a magic wand that can help to transform us from where we are to our climate objectives.
Rosie (09:34)
So another returning theme on this podcast is the energy transition. And I guess we're just going to keep talking and talking about it. Now, as I understand, there's a wide variety of energy dependencies in the Caribbean from traditional oil and gas to solar, wind, geothermal generation. Can you talk us through some of the challenges and opportunities that provides?
Racquel Moses (09:57)
So I'll start with the opportunities because we're optimists first, right? And there are huge opportunities. One of the curses slash blessings that we've realised is that our region has a very high cost per kilowatt hour of energy. And so this transition, while yes, it has high upfront costs, over the long term,
Rosie (10:01)
Oh yeah. Yeah.
Racquel Moses (10:23)
represents a massive savings for all of these islands in their energy independence. And that energy independence helps us to be more economically sound. It helps us, our industries to do better. It helps us to build other industries that are energy dependent. So we are very excited about this energy transition because apart from moving away from fossil fuels, which are the cause of the struggle that we face,
It also allows us this energy that we can develop and maintain and build upon that belongs to us. It's sunshine, it's wind, it's hydro, it's, we have ways to energy. We have so many different solutions and each island is figuring out its own ideal mix, which is also exciting to be on the sidelines of. We have massive geothermal reserves, for example.
And we are very, very anxious to see building out a green fuel hub within our region using those geothermal resources. So we have a lot to be excited about. The challenge that we face is that all of these things are very expensive. So finding ways to upfront that investment is key.
And again, using blended finance, using philanthropy, using multilateral development banks, figuring out all of the sources that we can go to, to help us to explore these resources, but also attracting investors because we're small, we're not necessarily on the tip of people's tongues. So we definitely need more investors interested in our region to match them with projects. It's also a great opportunity for entrepreneurs and microgrids and thinking about.
doing some of these things at a smaller scale as well.
Rosie (12:17)
Now in other areas of the world, we see projects involved in the transition and other areas too, such as food and water security, and they're generating new jobs and industries. Is that true for the Caribbean? And how does that impact the climate resilience of the member nations going forward?
Racquel Moses (12:37)
It's absolutely true for us. And we're seeing a lot more universities in our region offering courses on climate. We're seeing a lot more graduates graduating with degrees that are relevant to climate. And we're definitely seeing lots of young people interested in pursuing careers in climate. What we've noticed is that, you know, with ESG and being on the front lines, we are keenly aware of
the impact of climate on us. We don't see it as some future state that we're trying to avoid. We see it as a current state that we are trying to either adapt to or prevent from getting worse. So we definitely see a lot of jobs being created in this space. We would like to see more. A lot of the organisations that either manage carbon credits or are all located outside of where we are.
And so when you think of the major institutions globally
provide climate work or provide climate consultancies, they're not within our region. And we need to see more of that. We need to see more ownership of the issues that face us so directly. And I would love to see, we measure, we are, one of our pillars is 1 .5 % new green jobs. And we want to at least get to a measurable.
percentage of green jobs within our region because right now we're not even measuring it. So that's one of the things that we hope to do with the Climate Smart Map is measure the penetration of green jobs and then get that to at least register on a percentage scale.
Rosie (14:18)
Sounds like a really exciting thing you've got going on there. Now as islands, both Guernsey and the Caribbean islands are synonymous, as you can tell, with the ocean. And in recent years, it's become an increasingly important part of the sustainable finance conversation. How important do you see this area as? And are there any particular projects going on in your part of the world that you'd like to highlight?
Racquel Moses (14:44)
Yeah, so it is massively important for us to think about what's happening in all of our spaces. But we are really excited about our Climate Smart Agriculture project that we launched last year in Cayman, in Anguilla, and in Barbados.
Cayman launched theirs earlier this year and decided to expand it immediately. So it's providing technologies that help communities to grow their own food. And that's so important. Food security is so very important. But we're also this year launching or piloting our Innovation Fund, where we're helping small Caribbean projects to access other sources of funding.
So how do we help them get properly prepared so that they can access either blue carbon or traditional funding or even access philanthropy? So how do we help them to be more prepared? The reason that, you know, 75 % of the philanthropy in our region went to U .S. territories, it's because we're under -resourced. So we're not competing well for the global resources that are available.
And those resources are very finite and very competitive. So we have to become more competitive in going after philanthropy, in going after investment. And that's one of the things that we're helping to do as well.
Rosie (16:20)
That's good to know. Now, finally, do you believe there's an opportunity for Guernsey as an international finance centre to collaborate in these areas and obviously as a leader in sustainable finance? Is there an opportunity for Guernsey and the Caribbean to collaborate maybe? And if so, how?
Racquel Moses (16:39)
Absolutely. So when there were a couple of panels with Guernsey folks on it, and I was just blown away by the things that you're piloting and the work that you're doing and how you're bringing sustainable finance to the table. We definitely need to learn from you. No, we definitely need to learn from you and what you're doing. You know, as islands, we've got to...
Rosie (16:56)
That's so kind. Thank you.
Racquel Moses (17:05)
build our centres of excellence. There are things that we are doing really well, but there are things that you are doing really well that we need to learn from. And by combining our efforts and learning from those who are best in class in sustainable finance like Guernsey, we can do so much better. So definitely we want to collaborate with you. We want to learn about what's on the cutting edge. What are some of the solutions that you've brought to the table?
how you've implemented it. I think there was one, a circular economy example that had been provided. And I was just like, oh my gosh, I was literally, let me go to Guernsey now. I want to understand how this worked and how you were able to get that so ingrained in your society that there was the level of support and walking that project through from beginning to end. That's something that we need to implement for sure.
Rosie (18:00)
Oh, that's so nice of you to say. And do you know what? There's always a warm welcome going to be extended. If you ever want to come over to Guernsey anytime, just let us know. Thank you so much, Racquel, for your time and for your insights today. It's been such a pleasure to speak with you again.
been really interesting hearing your thoughts and yeah, we look forward to hearing more from you and your progress as time goes on. I'd also like to thank our listeners for tuning into this episode. We've got quite a few minutes left. minutes left.
back catalog of interviews and panel discussions on the sustainable finance Guernsey podcast channel. You can check them out by searching for sustainable finance Guernsey wherever you get your podcasts. And if you enjoyed today's episode, please leave us a review or a comment. We love to get your feedback.
and we'll be back soon with another episode of the sustainable finance Guernsey podcast. Thanks.